International Relations: Nuclear Weapons & Deterrence

can cause mass destruction in instant, irreversibility, no time for bargaining, no adaptation, no military victory (cannot rival nukes)

recognized by NPT as having right to possess: P5 (Russia, US, China, UK, France)

P5 plus India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea

slow, vulnerable, can be recalled giving more time for negotiations, can signal but difficult to convince plane isn't holding nuke

most survivable, can;t be used for signalling, command and control difficult

large atom is split apart, generate explosions in kiloton range

two hydrogen atoms fuse, tend to be more powerful, countries try to get

very fast response, realitively cheap, silos are targetable

secured second strike, neither side can wipe out the other’s weapons first and escape retaliation

mutally assured destruction, result of SSS, use of nukes by two oppossing sides would lead to total anihalation of both

how nuclear use is deincentivized (arms race stability & crisis stability)

no one feels pressure to keep building up nuclear arsenal

neither side is incentivized to use nukes first in a crisis (often because of SSS, they don’t fear the other state using their nuclear weapons, no first strike advantage)

breaks crisis stability, In this scenario there is a first strike advantage (the state that strikes first could completely obliterate the other state’s nuclear arsenal) therefore you have to either use it or lose it

stability at macro level due to SSS/MAD, unstability at micro cause incentivized to participate in lower levels of conflict because of this (proxy wars)

Punishment: threaten attacks, Denial: making it too costly for them to attack you

protecting yourself w/ threat vs protecting another state, In both cases a state uses threat of nuclear retaliation to deter attack

Deterrence: using threat to convince other country to not attack -> want to maintain status quo, Compellence: convince them to do something with threat -> want to change status quo

Counterforce: take out other’s capabilities (military, weapons) harder to do, Countervalue: striking what’s valuable (ie. cities, and industry) easier to do

kroenig, if a state as a saliently more advanced nuclear arsenal, that does matter -> Superior state can damage weaker state’s arsenal making it so that if they strike back the damage to their homeland is notably less than that of the other state (SSS fragile)